To the Editor:
Ellen Tabb’s coverage [Letter, “Careful about History,” page 14] of the Feb. 8 hearing of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Confederate Memorials and Street Names was indeed right on. I was the individual who mentioned George Mason’s name only after several speakers indicated that their lineage in Virginia was decades old, and one committee member noted that his own ancestry went back some 189 years. My Virginia ancestry is nearly 400 years in duration, starting with the first George Mason, who was born in 1629. Although I stated that I was a direct descendent of George Mason IV, recently someone has pointed out that I am also directly descended from his father George Mason III, so I would like to set the record straight on this. There were actually five George Masons around that time, you see, and I did not discover until 10 years ago that I was even related to the Mason family.
I would also like to set the record straight on another matter. After I mentioned my relationship to George Mason, another speaker stated that George Mason had decapitated four slaves and then displayed their heads on the chimneys of City Hall. After the hearing, I challenged the speaker as to his source of this scurrilous information. The speaker indicated that he had heard this at a meeting at Mount Vernon. I then contacted Gunston Hall, which provided me with data that supported Ellen Tabb’s findings.
The fact is, seven slaves were convicted by the authorities of attempting to poison their overseers, four of them were then beheaded. Mason received compensation for four of those slaves, who were deemed to be his property. However, my direct ancestor George Mason has a well-documented history concerning slavery. He and two other members of the Constitutional Convention refused to sign the Constitution and walked out. Mason did so because the Constitution contained no Bill of Rights, and it did not adequately address the slavery issue, which had always troubled him.
Some not-quite-correct information was presented at this forum, so I along with Ellen Tabb appreciate the opportunity to correct it.
Townsend A. “Van” Van Fleet
Alexandria